Watching Sir Paul Smith take his front-row seat inside Florence's Salon del Cinquecento, filled with Mannerist artworks, had already heightened anticipation for the SS Daley show on Thursday night.
When press releases were displayed after the exhibition ended, the audience was stunned. Not only had he witnessed a grand spectacle, in which 26-year-old designer Steven Stokey-Daley dwelled on a romantic, languid, queer vision of British sartorial heritage, but he was also receiving news that Harry Styles was was becoming a minority investor in the brand.
The pair have been linked since Styles tapped into Stokey-Daley's graduate collection for the outfit in his “Golden” music video, courtesy of the former's stylist, Harry Lambert.
SS Daley's fall show was a concise display of the British creative's ability to bend the codes of his native country, playing with proportions and references as disparate as British photographer Dafydd Jones' “The Last Hurrah” series, focused on upper class parties of the 80s, which abound. with black ties and tails, and EM Forster's “A Story of a Panic” from 1911 about a boy's carnal awakening in Italy.
Mocking the debauchery of the rich and educated British, Stokey-Daley opened the show with tailcoats worn without pants or bare-chested that transformed into trench coats and a great example of elegance outside the bed, a quilted duvet turned cocoon . Puffer adorned with curtain ropes. Pleats on shorts and chinos were pushed aside to make the pants look like pleated skirts, while striped tailoring in light, summery fabrics mimicked formal pinstripe suits. The preppy boy's nighttime attire was styled into pajama sets inspired by ruffled hem shirts and short sleeveless crochet dresses with a homey, lived-in feel.
“I love it because in some ways it feels like an extension of Savile Row, and where Savile Row is maybe not as alive now. It feels like it’s more alive here,” Stokey-Daley said backstage.
Fully embracing his naive creative spirit, the designer paraded intarsia sweaters with childish motifs of sheep and carrot-hunting bunnies, as well as argyle vests mixed with rugby shirts turned into exquisite ponchos with characteristic patterns of English tapestry, from hunting horsemen to flowers. wild. One of the most famous bears, Paddington, made a cameo, wearing the all-yellow raincoat look comprising a bucket hat, bucket jacket and Mary Jane shoes, part of SS Daley's inaugural footwear line.
“The point is, he's a very creative guy,” Smith said minutes before the show began. “He has an interesting way of presenting clothes. He loves the dandies of the past. People used to dress in a very special way. I think having it [at Pitti Uomo] It is important when many of the brands that dominate the fashion world are very similar. [to one another].
“It's nice to see [there is] an opportunity for a young designer,” he added.
After Thursday's show and news, no one could argue that this opportunity was not well deserved.
